Increase Your Web Traffic in a Weekend (In a Weekend)

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Summary: Websites Can Become More Productive Marketing Tools!
Review:    Success for any online business or any other form of online information sharing is dependent upon certain factors such as having a well designed Website, having a set purpose for the Website, having the motivation to succeed, and of course, how well the Website is being marketed. William Stanek has written Increase Your Web Traffic In a Weekend to assist Webmasters and other online people to effectively promote themselves!     The author does a superb job outlining sound strategies to promote any Website. This book is full of creative and necessary steps to take. For instance, Websites could be listed with a number of Internet search engines, business search engines, online Yellow Pages directories, and other specialized directories. Newsgroups and E-Mail are other forms of online exposure that can draw attention to a Website.      According to the author there are ways of determining who is visiting your Website, for what reasons, how often, from what locale, through what service, and which pages are being accessed more often. The use of guest books is one option. A good amount of time is taken to analyze the access logs most Website owners and Webmasters have available to them. Based upon information gleaned from guest books and access logs a Website can become a more productive marketing tool. You never know who may decide to drop by and for what reason. Find out today!      The author offers other helpful information on how best a Website can be promoted. Ideas such as using banner advertisements, offering give away incentives, holding contests, games, and sweepstakes are covered. Consider offering important information people can take with them and services they can put to use. Links to online sources of software, clipart, sounds, and Website design tips may also prove helpful.      Before paying someone else to promote your Website, consider investing in this book and setting aside a weekend. This book offers a disciplined approach that if followed will generate a noticeable increase in Web traffic to your site. The knowledge and experience gained by following the instruction in this book will be worth the time and money involved. Highly recommended!

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Summary: Awesome Web site set up for this book!
Review: I have been following William Stanek's writing for some time (ever since Web Publishing Unleashed blew me away!) Recently, I tracked down the Web site for this book. Although I honestly can't review a book I haven't seen, I can say there is a ton of great information and resources at the Web site for this book. If the Web site is any reflection of the book, this is really going to change the way everyone thinks about Web promotion. Check out the Web site at http://www.tvpress.com/promote/ -- Kyle

PS I've already put in my advance order for the book and based on what I've seen anyone that is interested in getting their Web site noticed and increasing their Web traffic should as well.

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Summary: Needs updating
Review: Many of the "free" promotional sites listed in the book now only provide fee-based listings. However, any Internet book that is three years old will undoubtedly include some outdated material. I would like to see an updated version. Even with this limitation, I successfully updated a couple of the business sites I maintain, including www.medresearchnow.com.

Brad

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Summary: It'll change the way you think about the Web...
Review: Stanek is my favorite computer book author and this is my favorite Stanek book of all time! I had so much fun with this book. I followed everything Mr. Stanek talked about and saw great results. The results are ultimately what made all the difference. Building Web traffic takes time but the end result is worth it. I knew at once when my site was finally entered into the databases and lists and the difference was dramatic. Stanek talks about promotion techniques no one else ever dreamed of until he pointed them out to the world. Buy the book and see why the pros are selling Stanek's techniques to their clients for big bucks. Quite a return on a book that costs $19.95.

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Summary: 1 of 3 Stanek books I bought and use!
Review: A solid book. Practical and useful. Following author's advice my traffic increased 5X. My home page got listed as the cool site of the day! The book is supported by a companion web site that is well thought out and useful. To access the resources you need the book, it is setup on a chapter by chapter URL. The book includes STanek's web promoter's log book. This is something I would have paid for by itself. If you've never read a Stanek book I believe you are in for a treat.

Rating:
Summary: Needs updating
Review: Many of the "free" promotional sites listed in the book now only provide fee-based listings. However, any Internet book that is three years old will undoubtedly include some outdated material. I would like to see an updated version. Even with this limitation, I successfully updated a couple of the business sites I maintain, including www.medresearchnow.com.

Brad

Rating:
Summary: Basic and filled with (outdated) tricks
Review: This book, written in 1998 and revised in 2000, by Internet time standards can be considered outdated at the time of this writing (August 2002). The author unfortunately touched on a number of Web sites and tactics that nowadays are either dead (Web sites) or considered bad internet marketing practices (redirecting, use of link farms) that could actually get you delisted. The section on traffic analysis at least talks about a professional tool (WebTrends) but then goes down a long and unnecessarily technical talk about web logs that is sure to bore the heck out of non-technical readers. If you don't mind getting spammed big time, by registering for some of the services the author recommends that are still around, and don't mind dropping in the ranks of Google at all, then get this book and follow its advice. Otherswise, download (and pay) for a license of WebPosition Gold and read the book that Amazon sells about it.

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Summary: I've had great success with my site as a result of this book
Review: I don't know where the other reviewers are coming from! I've devoured the advice in this book, implemented it, and have reaped tremendous rewards.

The advice for submitting my site to search engines & directories has been invaluable and I credit it with the dramatic growth C-boom.com has enjoyed. I've already received one of the better web awards, thanks to the book's advice, and my "Humorous T-shirts for Baby Boomers" (a department at my site) will be the featured store at one of the top T-shirt Sites on the web in May. All of this recognition continues to increase the popularity of C-boom.com and to build my web business -- which is still quite new.

Basic, clear, straight forward advice! It's been very very good to me.

Margy
C-boom, where the cool boomers surf!...

Rating:
Summary: Very little content
Review: The title advertises that the books has a very low content to size ratio...and the book delivers. I was able to read the book in two hours, and really didn't get a full 15 minutes worth of new information.

The author inflates the size of the book with a large number of graphics and tables without any content. He has several pages showing results from a Unix grep command. Most of the information in the 1998 edition is irrelevant today. Fortunately, I read a library copy and don't feel gyped.

The reading is very easy, and may be worth a very quick scan, but I would not recommend spending the money.

Rating:
Summary: Very basic...tactics & info is available for free on the net
Review: I did not have very high expectations for this book. After all, you are talking about ideas and concepts that change frequently and drastically. If you have never worked to promote your web site, then this is not a bad choice for an introduction. I like the way the author breaks down log files, talks about organizing your stats, etc.

However, web site promotion is a very dynamic and fast moving area of the Internet. This book will let you know how much you don't know. But if you want to actually learn more about promoting your site, go to the web and read the online sources. There are many free discussion boards, newsletters, etc. that will cut right to the heart of promoting your site. The concepts and beginning points outlined in this book are a good place to start, but it's like publishing a Yellow Pages for web sites, as soon as you do it...it's out of date and innacurate.

See ya